The present disclosure relates to a system and a method for routing of chemicals, such as chemicals related to drilling fluids. In the following discussion, drilling fluids and a drilling fluid plant will be used to exemplify the disclosure, though the invention, claimed below, is not limited to this specific use.
Drilling Fluids are made up of many different chemicals (additives); some in powder form and others in liquid form. The composition of the chemicals varies greatly. Drilling fluid plants contain a complex matrix of tanks, pipes, valves, pumps, mixers etc. These are used for storing and transferring different chemicals from one place, a source, to another, a destination, when required and to mix the different chemicals together to achieve a homogenous drilling fluid with the necessary properties needed at any given time.
In certain conventional drilling fluid plants, chemicals are routed in a manual or semi-automatic way, meaning the operator needs to plan what route the chemicals should take from the source, such as a storage tank, to a destination, such as a mixing tank, without interfering with other ongoing processes. Thereafter, all the equipment on the route needs to be operated individually in a given order. In some cases, there may be static/fixed routes available where a process control unit has logics to operate specific equipment along the route.
Because the number of valves, pumps, mixers etc. that need to be engaged typically is large and spread out over a large area, and thus is part of a complex matrix of piping, routing of chemicals from a source to a destination may be a complex and time-consuming process, requiring high skills from an operator. Finding an optimum path between source and destination is particularly complicated, especially when multiple simultaneous routings/parallel flows are required. Erroneous or sub-optimal routing of chemicals is therefore quite common, which may result in unwanted situations such as contamination of fluids, the need to discard chemicals, high cost, negative HSE issues, poor drilling efficiency, poor product quality, drilling-downtime, and inferior personnel safety.
Before starting a transfer of chemicals, the operator must first plan which route the chemicals should take. The operator needs to subjectively make several critical considerations so as to decide if there are any available transfer routes, whether a fast transfer and/or a maximum throughput is required, whether any equipment should be avoided, whether any equipment must be used (for instance a specific pump, mixer etc.) and whether a transfer along the planned route in any way will interfere with an ongoing transfer. Based on these and other considerations, the operator needs to choose an optimum route/path for the chemical transfer. After choosing the optimum route, the operator also needs to consider if any equipment needs be executed in a specific order. When the transfer is ongoing, the operator further needs to constantly and carefully monitor the progress of the chemical transfer so as to detect any deviation, such as equipment failure, from a normal operation. In case of a deviation, the operator then needs to stop the ongoing operation by shutting down equipment, potentially in a required order, and then re-plan. With the potential complexity of a chemical plant, the amount of manual involvement in a chemical transfer process makes it highly probable that the transfer process will be sub-optimal or even incorrect, thus leading to potential inefficient transfer, excessive wear of equipment, high equipment down-time, high chemical contamination and excessive waste.
By dividing the plant into a number of fixed, non-dynamic, chemical transfer routes, the flexibility of the transfer system is significantly reduced as is the number of available routes. One route may be optimal, or near optimal, under normal operating conditions, but in the case of a deviation there may be only a few, if any, alternatives for the operator.